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Anatech Electronics RF & Microwave Filters - RF Cafe

Three Letter Quiz
January 1964 Popular Electronics

January 1964 Popular Electronics

January 1964 Popular Electronics Cover - RF CafeTable of Contents

Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Popular Electronics, published October 1954 - April 1985. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.

Of all the ones to miss on this "Three Letter Quiz," I screwed up drawing "A." It was a matter of thinking too hard (at least that's my excuse). This is another of Robert P. Balin's many electronics-related quizzes that appeared in Popular Electronics magazine over a couple of decades. I will once again admonish non-old guys (unlike myself) to not spaz when you see a vacuum tube in the circuit. Just mentally replace it with an equivalent semiconductor device (a diode if it has two elements - other than a heater coil - or a transistor if it has three or more elements). Surely, you will easily figure our "A," and probably the other nine as well. I colorized the drawings to make them look more modern.

Three Letter Quiz

Three Letter Quiz (left), January 1964 Popular Electronics - RF Cafe Three Letter Quiz (top), January 1964 Popular Electronics - RF Cafe Three Letter Quiz (right), January 1964 Popular Electronics - RF Cafe

By Robert P. Balin

The special vocabulary of electronics includes many three-letter abbreviations that the technician and experimenter soon learn to recognize and interpret almost as readily as they do the language of the sports pages. Try your hand at matching up the numbered abbreviations below with the sketches that suggest the meaning of each one. Nine out of ten correct answers is a good score.

Three Letter Quiz (bottom), January 1964 Popular Electronics - RF Cafe

Quizzes from vintage electronics magazines such as Popular Electronics, Electronics-World, QST, Radio-Electronics, and Radio News were published over the years - some really simple and others not so simple. Robert P. Balin created most of the quizzes for Popular Electronics. This is a listing of all I have posted thus far.

RF Cafe Quizzes

Vintage Electronics Magazine Quizzes

Vintage Electronics Magazine Quizzes

 

 

Three Letter Quiz Answers

1 - H   The American Wire Gauge (AWG) system is used to measure wire diameter in the United States.

2 - D   In Electron Coupled Oscillator (ECO) circuit, the screen is the oscillator anode. Output is coupled to plate via electron stream only.

3 - A   Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is time at Greenwich, Eng., meridian, given in 24 -hour system.

4 - F   Modulated Continuous Wave (MCW) is a type of tone-modulated carrier wave transmitted by some commercial radiotelegraph stations.

5 - B   Peak Inverse Voltage (PIV) is maximum voltage across a rectifier in the reverse polarity.

6 - E   A PPI is a radar display, Plan Position Indicator type, showing scanned area as a map.

7 - J   A radio-frequency choke (RFC) is a coil having relatively high inductive impedance within its usable frequency range, without self-resonance.

8 - G   The root-mean-square (RMS) value of a sine-wave a.c. is the value that will cause the same heating effect in a resistive load as a numerically equal value of d.c.

9 - I   In single-sideband (SSB) transmission, the carrier and one sideband are suppressed, and only the remaining sideband is radiated.

10 - C   The standing wave ratio (SWR) on a transmission line is maximum value of current or voltage to minimum value, as measured along line.

Anatech Electronics RF & Microwave Filters - RF Cafe

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Copyright: 1996 - 2025
Webmaster: Kirt Blattenberger,
   BSEE - KB3UON - AMA92498
   USAF Radar Technician

RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling 2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps while tying up your telephone line, and a lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail" when a new message arrived...

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